All posts by Will

Sunken World Servants and Slaves of The Thulhids

August 30, 2012 Will Leave a comment

Another page of characters from the Sunken World. These are slave guards who accompany the Gurgus (an amphibious race of fish-men bred to interact with humans; acting as merchants, ambassadors and slave traders). These creatures were inspired by blobfish (Psychrolutes Marcidus) and handfish (Brachionichthyidae ); I had previously doodled them in May 2011 with my Thulhid designs.

https://www.willbeck.com/artblog?p=45

The humans and other races that the Thulhids prey upon are enslaved by having horrid magically-modified crustaceans attached to their necks that allow the Thulhids to control the host telepathically. The stress from this eventually means the host dies; so periodically the Thulhids and their fish-men servants need to acquire more slaves.

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Sunken World Sea Druid and Druidess

August 11, 2012 Will Leave a comment

A couple of concepts for characters that move from port to port in the Sunken World plying their magical trade. The sea elemental is a variety of water elemental with added seaweed and kelp!
The druidess has summoned an air elemental and is accompanied by her monkey-cat familiar.

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Dark fantasy, Fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Flying demon ideas

June 29, 2012 Will Leave a comment

More of my designs for demons. As I had doodled a flying demon (carrying a warlock) I wanted to see if I could create a more detailed version.

I scribbled a few ideas but it was while watching a dinosaur program on the BBC website I thought the way the Hatzegopteryx had been animated gave me an idea for how to draw my flying demon that wasn’t obviously a like dragon or a wyvern. I later had the idea that if endangered it could vomit acidic bile on an opponent.

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Model making and sculpture

Tiki mask

June 10, 2012 Will Leave a comment

To celebrate the extra day of holiday (due to some sort of royal event) I travelled to my friends’ (Andy and Naomi) house for an Hawaiian party. We had a great time and drank a lot!

I’d been challenged by my friend Mark to create a Tiki mask for this occasion. So using Dan Reeder’s paper maché techniques in his Paper Maché MONSTERS book I set about creating one. It had to be light (I would be carrying it on the train through London) so I didn’t use any cloth maché.
Here’s the construction using masking tape, blue packaging foam, cardboard, paper maché and elephant tape and with plastic balls for eyes. (Thanks to my brother for tape dispensing and structural integrity help!) Painted with acrylics.

And here’s a photo at the party:

Instagram photo by Colin Twyman.

I remember The Simple Screamer and Heroes for Wargames books being my favorite borrows from Scunthorpe Central Library many years ago.

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Fantasy, Illustrations

GHAAN-OG The Berserker

May 11, 2012 Will Leave a comment

Finally my first non-Christmas themed comic page (apart from my Mr. Scarecrow one which I drew at art college).
I approached this as a professional comic book artist would, from (my own)script, thumbnails, drawing and inking the panels and so on. An excellent exercise; it really made me appreciate the skill of my favourite comic-book writers, letterers, colourists and artists.

The next one will be at least two pages long!

Fonts by Blambot

Steampunk Sir Mordred and Queen Morgana

May 2, 2012 Will Leave a comment

Another digitally-painted page from my Steampunk King Arthur series. Here is the rebel knight Sir Mordred (bastard child of King Arthur and his sister, Morgana) and some portraits of other knights that have attached themselves to Mordred’s rebellion. On the right is Queen Morgana la Fay herself; a scientist specialising in chemical weapons (which she drops onto the enemy from her zeppelin).
I wanted the rebels to be a little darker in feel to Arthur’s forces; so I exaggerated this with an asymmetrical haircut and spiky shoulder plate for Sir Mordred. His helmet homages the film Excalibur and Queen Morgana has a deliberate Maria the robot (from Metropolis) reference and also the shiny breastplate that Helen Mirren wore in Excalibur.

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Fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Arch-Warlock Demon concept

March 1, 2012 Will Leave a comment

A brief diversion back to my demon concepts. Here is my idea for the warlock demons; I hope the notes fairly are self-explanatory but here is a bit more description:

Demons warped through their use of dark magic are usually stunted and need creatures (slaves or other beasts) to convey them to the front line. Here I’ve designed a dog-demon for the weirdest-looking warlock to ride (controlled by a control rune linked to his master) based in part on cryptozoology’s ‘Texas Blue Dogs’.

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/fbi/6298/texas_blue_dogs.html

Next, for my ghostly-gas polluting demon I doodled some ideas for the way he could travel around (a balloon or carried by a flying demon) but the bloated soldier demon seemed to suit him (it?).

And finally for the arch-warlock, the most powerful wizard in the demon army (apart from of the Demon Lords ) he required a more high-tech magical way of moving around and fighting so I invented this automaton-cage device.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

SF Colony Cops 2

February 16, 2012 Will Leave a comment

Some progression from my sketchbook (I hope) on my SF police designs and some possible portraits (with a bit of digital paints, no likenesses are intended!).

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

SF Colony Cops 1

February 8, 2012 Will Leave a comment

At the moment one of the things I’m doing (apart from Steampunk King Arthur, my comic and a few ideas for my blog) is continuing with some SF stuff. These are early ideas from my sketchbook for some future colony police (thanks to my brother for that one!). I’m trying to get a coherent look and feel for them, though they’re more practical not too dissimilar from police forces around the world right now; so I need to inject a bit more futurism.

I’ve been looking at the science fiction police from Ghost In The Shell, Appleseed, Patlabor, the security forces in Brink, the police in Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, American football helmets, paintball masks, and futuristic motorcycle helmets. I intend to create designs for the robots, detectives and space army too, we’ll see how it goes!

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Illustrations, Science Fiction

SF team ideas

January 23, 2012 Will Leave a comment

Continuing the Science Fiction theme; are some of my early ideas for a group of SF characters (I think I first put these online on my ImagineFX sketchbook page).
(The doodles on the left are ideas for a rebels army for WH40K I was working on and some habitat buildings.)

Here we have a shotgun-toting woman, a scarred veteran warrior and a robot (like Wallbanger in 2000AD’s Bad Company). On the other side we have a sniper (with bionic eyes) and a detective or investigator. I didn’t have more than a vague notion for what their purpose was so I left the idea for a while.

Now in 2009 I wanted to return to these characters (adding a friendly mutant) and refining their shapes. Again they lacked a cohesive sense of purpose so again they got shelved.

I’m working on the new versions, with a more fixed idea of what they are, at the moment.

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SF & Fantasy Art